The Saint Valentine's Day Murders (23 page)

‘I’m sorry about this, Milton, but you must realize that we can’t stand much more of this public criticism about our slowness. We need results.’

Milton reflected that for all that they pretended to despise the popular press, they were strikingly thin-skinned about accusations of inefficiency, even when they were unjustified.

‘You see, putting Randall on the job when he gets back will show what a high priority we are giving to it.’

‘It’s all right, sir. You don’t need to explain.’ It was bad enough to be humiliated, he thought, without having to put up with all this bullshit.

‘In the meantime, of course, carry on as you are. Who knows? You might have got your man before Monday. There’s nothing like a spur to get chaps cracking.’ The AC gave the sniggery laugh that Milton so much disliked. ‘This isn’t a reflection on you, you understand. Except in so far as you are perhaps a little too prone to give your fellows an easy ride. It may be that what is needed is a bit more hustle and firmness.’

‘If that’s all, I’ll get back to my office.’

‘Oh, there is just one other thing. I’ve agreed with the three Chief Constables that there’s no need to keep those tails on the job.’

‘Had you consulted me, sir,’ said Milton as evenly as he could, ‘I would not have agreed with you.’

‘That’s as may be, Milton. But there’s a lot of bad feeling about the waste of time involved. If any of them intended to skip the country, they’d have tried by now.’

‘The reasons for having them tailed were more complicated than that.’

‘Oh, yes. I know. I remember what you said. I just don’t think there’s anything in it. Anyway, we can’t afford to alienate our provincial colleagues unless there’s a very good reason.’

Like catching a murderer? thought Milton. He knew from experience that there was no point in arguing when the AC had made up his mind.

‘Well, that’s all, Milton, unless you want to consult me about anything.’

‘No thank you, sir.’ Milton walked out of the office hating himself. He should at least have put up a symbolic fight. But pointless battle had never been his style. He preferred to reserve his fire for the occasions when it might force the enemy to back off.

When he reached his office, he sat looking again at the newspaper article that had sealed his fate. ‘WIVES IN DANGER, YARD DRAWS BLANK,’ it began. ‘The Chocolate Poisoner May Strike Again,’ ran the sub-heading.

A source at Scotland Yard today revealed that the cruel murderer who sent hoax love-gifts to six women on St Valentine’s Day may strike again.

The police have so far failed to trace the source of the deadly strychnine that killed beautiful wife, Fran Short, 34, grannie Edna Crump, 54, little Tommy Farson, 7, and husband and father Charles Collins, 32.

ROPE

Heartbroken widower Henry Crump said yesterday, ‘No woman is safe from this maniac. I wish I knew what the police are doing. I know they’ve got a lot on their hands coping with muggers and rioters, but I don’t see why they can’t find the maniac who killed my Edna. I suppose when they get him some judge will give him life and he’ll be out to kill again within a few years. It is time the government brought back the rope.’

NO PROGRESS

When we put this to Chief Superintendent Milton, he said, ‘I’m afraid I have no progress to report.’

The unfair selectivity of the rag so maddened Milton that, without reading on, he scrunched it into a ball and hurled it into the wastepaper basket. He picked up the pile of messages on his desk and riffled through them. When he came to one from Pooley asking if he could see him for a moment, he hesitated and then rang through to him. He felt in need of being cheered up.

‘It’s ingenious, Ellis, but you’re really twisting the facts to suit the case. It’s far more likely that he was a bit of a prude than that he disliked women.’

‘But it’s possible, sir.’

‘Of course it’s possible. Everything’s possible. I’m just saying it’s highly improbable. Anyway I have to say that you’ve built a somewhat tenuous link between your basic hypothesis and his deciding to poison fully-clothed respectable women like grannie Edna Crump, 54.’

Pooley looked bewildered for a moment and then recognized the reference. ‘I was sorry to read that article, sir. They seem to be gunning for you. It was very unfair.’

‘Life’s unfair. Now carry on. You’re telling me that at least we now have reason to believe Bill Thomas is peculiar about women and that therefore you think we should be turning the spotlight on him. Have you forgotten Farson?’

‘Oh, no, sir. I still think he is by far the most likely of all of them. I just think Thomas looks very promising. Apart from anything else, he’s had more freedom than any of them during the last year or so and he could have easily gone to Amsterdam or Hamburg or somewhere to get hold of some suitable poison that couldn’t be traced to him.’

‘With this mythical false passport?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Milton’s mind ran through the latest state of play on the strychnine hunt. Even Trueman now seemed to have given up hope. There was a lot to be said for the idea that an ordinary Englishman working in London and living near it might find it safer to seek villains abroad.

‘Are you and Sammy making any progress in finding out who could and who couldn’t have gone abroad recently?’

‘We’re working on it, sir. But a lot of the neighbours and relatives we’re ringing are out. I don’t know when we’ll be finished.’

‘Our bargain stands, Ellis. But I have to warn you again that the chances of getting agreement to a
prima facie
wild-goose chase are slim. And for reasons I won’t go into now, they’ll be slimmer next week.’

Pooley jumped up. ‘I’ll get on with it immediately, sir.’

When he had left, Milton looked at his watch. He had fifteen minutes before the co-ordination meeting. He looked through the messages again to determine which were the most urgent. Then he dropped them on to the desk and reached into his drawer. Against his better judgement, he thought he had better shorten the odds on Bill. It was only iron self-control that stayed his hand from vindictively shortening Henry’s also.

33

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Thursday, 3 March

The telephone rang several times. When Val answered it she sounded breathless.

‘Mrs Illingworth? This is Superintendent Milton. May I call to see you this afternoon?’

‘Yes, of course. But why?’

‘I’d prefer to explain that when I see you. Shall we say half past two?’

‘That’ll be fine. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, Mrs Illingworth.’

Milton replaced the receiver. Pike and Pooley, who were sitting in front of his desk, gazed at him expectantly. ‘I’ll go alone,’ he said. ‘I don’t think she’ll tell me the full story – always assuming there’s anything to tell – if I have anyone with me. With any luck you two can give me the final answer to the foreign travel question when I return.’

‘Come on, Ellis,’ said Pike. ‘We’ve still got a lot to do.’ Pooley, manfully concealing his disappointment at being left out of a potentially dramatic interrogation, gave Milton a half-smile and followed his colleague out of the door.

Three hours later, Milton listened to the loud sobs emanating from Val and hardened his heart. The AC would have been proud of him, he reckoned. He had shown exemplary firmness, not to say harshness, in wearing her down. If she didn’t spill the beans now, she never would.

‘Mrs Illingworth, I can stay here all day if necessary. Let me start again and this time please do not insult me by expecting me to believe the feeble denials you have been repeating for the last half hour.’

There was a strangled sound which he elected to ignore. ‘According to the evidence I have received from a number of sources, you frequently left the public house at which you worked just after eleven and did not arrive home until at least an hour later. The journey at that time of night should take no more than five minutes. I am asking you what you used to do during the intervening period.’

She sat up straight, stopped crying and said defiantly, ‘I don’t see what it has to do with you, anyway.’

Jesus Christ, thought Milton, she’s just like her bloody husband. Except, if anything, slower off the mark. That line of obstruction has only just occurred to her. Well, I’m not going to put up with it.

‘What it has to do with me is easily spelled out, Mrs Illingworth.’ He spoke slowly and carefully. ‘I’m trying to find out who wanted to murder you. Specifically, at the moment, I am trying to find out if your husband had a reason to want to do so. If he did and he has failed to achieve his objective, he may try again.’

This time he thought she was going to have hysterics. He found that he was too mad to care. ‘Are you going to answer me? Or should I repeat my original question?’

She left the room and returned carrying a box of tissues, with one of which she mopped her eyes and blew her nose.

‘I don’t know what to think,’ she said. He was reminded of a 1930s movie queen.

‘With respect, Mrs Illingworth, I am not asking you to think. I am asking you to give me some straightforward information.’

She peered cautiously around the second tissue, which she was now dabbing at her eyes in a slightly coquettish way.

‘If I tell you, you won’t tell Gray, will you?’

‘I will not tell…’ Milton hesitated. It was more than flesh and blood could stand to be expected to call anyone Gray. ‘I will not tell your husband unless I have no option.’

She seemed satisfied. He recognized the signs. She was over the tragedy queen bit and about to cut the crap and start talking.

‘I met this man, you see.’

‘Yes?’ Milton attempted to sound avuncular and cosmopolitan.

‘Well, there wasn’t anything in it really. We just used to sit in the car for a while after I finished work and talk to each other.’

‘And?’

‘Well, I told Gray about it.’ She seemed embarrassed. ‘That is, I told him I was having an affair with someone else.’

‘And were you?’

‘No. All we ever did was talk. And it only lasted for a few weeks anyway.’

Milton shook his head in an effort to clear it. ‘But according to information received, it is only since the murders that you have been coming home straight from work.’

He was pleased to see at least that Val’s face was no longer tear-stained. She looked up at him from underneath her lowered eye-lids, adjusted the pose of her shapely body to better effect and asked rather tremulously, ‘Are you married, superintendent?’

Milton thought rapidly about what was expected of him. Humphrey Bogart or Paul Newman? He did the best he could by bending towards her, fixing her with his sincere look and saying in a voice redolent with understanding, ‘I am indeed, Mrs Illingworth. Now why do you ask?’

‘She can’t really be as stupid as her behaviour suggests,’ he told Pike and Pooley at about six o’clock. It was a relief that Romford had already gone home and he could talk to them without appearing to slight their boss.

They looked at him encouragingly.

‘I mean that it became clear that she’s quite sharp in some ways. And she can be quite amusing. But I conclude that for the most part her head is stuffed with the ideas that women’s magazines used to peddle years ago. Making your man jealous and all that sort of thing.’

Pike was containing his impatience; Pooley barely. Milton took pity on them. ‘The substance of what she told me was that while this harmless flirtation was going on, she told “Gray”…’ – he pursed his lips in distaste – ‘that she was having a passionate affair with a wonderful man and was thinking of leaving him – “Gray”, that is. The bright idea behind this was to make him take more interest in her. As Robert informed us, she’s decidedly jealous of his obsession with little Gail.’

‘When did she tell him this, sir?’ asked Pooley, breathless with anticipation.

‘About two weeks before he went berserk at Twillerton. Take a bow, Sammy.’

Pike smiled rather sadly, as if he had been here before.

‘She, of course, knew nothing about his way of letting out his frustrations. She concluded that he couldn’t love her or he would have shown signs of rage instead of being cold and distant. Yes, that’s the way she talks. Hence, even though the chatty lover moved away from town shortly afterwards, through revenge she kept up the fiction that they were still involved in a frantic liaison. The more Illingworth failed to react, the more she flaunted her non-existent love-life at him.’

Pike was a man who liked to get the details right. ‘You mean she hung around for an hour after work each evening?’

‘Precisely. She would leave the pub and sit in the car for an hour. The silly bitch obviously understands nothing about Illingworth. One of her ploys was to ask him how he’d feel when she left him, taking Gail with her. If she didn’t actually drive him to murder – and she may have done – she certainly did her very best.’

‘Does she think he might have done it?’ asked Pooley eagerly.

‘She was frightened that he might, though she won’t say so in so many words. That fear is ultimately why she came clean with me after all that play-acting.’

‘It’s a good motive, anyway.’ Pike seemed distressed but resigned.

‘The very best. I bet Graham Illingworth reads every article he comes across on fathers who are denied their children when an unfeeling judge awards them to the sinning mother.’

‘How have you left it, sir?’

‘I’ve promised to say nothing about what she’s told me, although I told her she should tell him the full story. Their whole problem, if you’ll forgive my sounding like a marriage guidance counsellor, is that they are hopeless at communicating. It’s clear that she’s fond of him but petulant at the lack of attention. On the other hand, I would hazard a guess, he’s a poor confused idiot who takes her carry-on as a sign that she doesn’t love him. Therefore he concentrates ever more on the child who does.’